Progress
A lot has changed since the last post. Back then, I hated my job, I’d never been to Costa Rica and I spent almost all of my time outside of work sitting at a desk.
All that has changed.
As my last post made fairly clear, the early part of February 2010 was a horrible time. At the end of November, I’d made the leap from my first law firm and landed at a new one down the road (the “road” being the 405). Having worked at the law firm equivalent of a car being driven by a drunk driver, I was hesitant to move somewhere else unless it could provide me with a more stable environment. My hesitance was lessened by the recommendation of a co-worker from the first firm, so I decided to make the leap, thinking that this firm would provide me the stability that the first firm lacked.
I was wrong.
It took me only a few minutes to realize that I’d simply hopped into another doomed car. I’d traded a socially and emotionally impaired principal for one whose impairment was much simpler - he didn’t care about anyone. After two months of work, a very awkward Christmas party where one of the attorneys was unceremoniously fired hours before the party began and many moments of abject terror, I’d had enough.
I had to do something.
Let me say that I hope that this is the worst time for the legal labor market in my lifetime. There’s a seismic shift going on, where the scarcity of jobs and overeagerness of law schools has created an oversupply of newly minted, heavily indebted attorneys whose desperation comes across in the form of thousands of resumes sent in response to any job posting by “legal” in the subject or the body of a job posting. This even includes situations where the word “legal” is preceded with the word “borderline.” Still, knowing that the legal market was in such disarray, I figured I had had enough.
I had to quit.
Instead, I ended up accepting a transfer to a different office, with two and a half week break, during which I packed up my apartment, played a little golf, tried a few restaurants, and went to Costa Rica.
Now my life is pretty different. I’m working in the bay area, kind of. 95% of my belongings are at my parents’ house and the other 5% is crammed into a corner in Susan’s room. I wake up at 630am every day to catch two trains to work. I work in an office where people are known to smile and say good morning. There is a nameplate on my office door; it’s not some nameless door of an office that can claim 4 different inhabitants per year.
Of course, life isn’t perfect. My commute is killer. I’m pretty tired. The shirts I wear to work are smashed into accordion-type patterns. I don’t know where we’ll live next. When I come home, I work on the floor, not at a desk. My lower back isn’t happy about it, but it’s probably the only part of me that isn’t thrilled about the progress made in the last months and a half.
Now, life’s pretty good.